After she was told her album had reached the Top 20, she literally jumped for joy at the news. For a hit record was one thing Rock Choir founder Caroline Redman Lusher had dreamt of ever since she was a ten-year-old.
After a promising singing career failed to deliver the inspiration she craved, Caroline began a new life as a music teacher at Farnborough Sixth Form College, where she set up a choir for the students.
With its repertoire of pop and rock songs it proved so popular it soon attracted 170 members. And parents and teachers began reporting back that not only had their children’s grades begun improving in other subjects, but they were also happier and more confident.
Caroline recalls: “Then one day one of the mums said to me, ‘Can’t you do one for us?’. The students’ choir was the highlight of my week and I loved the positive impact singing was having, so I agreed.”
She put up a poster in a local coffee shop and when 70 people turned up, Rock Choir was born. Very quickly there was a waiting list to join, so she set up identical choirs in nearby towns.
Her concept broke with the traditions of the classical choir – they would sing pop songs, there would be no audition and no requirement to read music. Word spread and she began training other musicians to lead choirs outside her area. Today there are 33,000 members in 400 towns up and down the country, from Cornwall to Aberdeen.
It’s been a long journey since she took up piano and violin lessons aged just four.
Fast forward a decade and we find her lying about her age to land a job singing in nightclubs – when she was just 14.
Then, after gaining a degree in music, she moved to London to follow her dream of pop stardom and a record deal.
Soon she was performing in top London hotels, including the Dorchester, Hyde Park Hotel and the Lanesborough, in front of stars from Tina Turner and Pavarotti, to Sarah, the Duchess of York and her daughters Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.
Caroline recalls: “One afternoon I was performing during afternoon tea and two little girls came up – they wanted to play chopsticks. I didn’t realise who they were until Fergie came over and said, ‘I’m really sorry for bothering you!’.
“Tina Turner was in the hotel one night and she told the manager to tell me I had a great voice. And once OJ Simpson sat at the piano with me and sang a duet.”
Her brushes with the stars didn’t stop there.
“I’m a big fan of Sting and he was the only celebrity I entertained where I properly froze.
“We didn’t speak, but that night, after I finished, I was out on the steps of the hotel and felt two hands on my shoulders. It was Sting. He said, ‘Well done, great singing’.”
But despite the glamour, Caroline began to grow disillusioned with the lonely and darker side of her lounge singer lifestyle.
“Unfortunately, it could be seedy,” she says. “Most nights I was entertaining men and I’d be asked to sit and have dinner with them in my break. I’d find their keys left on the piano, jewellery gifts and even blank cheques. Nothing ever got out of hand, but I was uncomfortable many times.
“My dad came to see me one night and he sat at the bar.
“Bar stools were filled with men and a big ash tray sat in the middle of the piano.
“That was my clientele and I would be singing and breathing in all that cigar smoke.”
That night proved to be the final straw. Caroline quit her job, sold her London home and at the age of 26 moved to
Farnham in Surrey, closer to her parents. “It was a chap- ter closing,” she says. “I was embarrassed by what my dad witnessed. I’d developed asthma from all the cigar smoke and I didn’t feel like I was going anywhere.”
While the decision to become a music teacher signalled the start of a new era, she could have had no idea at the time that it would ultimately lead to the nationwide phenomenon that is the Rock Choir.
Its repertoire ranges from Fleetwood Mac, Queen and ELO to Ed Sheeran and Adele. “Popular music is my passion,” Caroline, 50, explains. “I want to inspire people to sing and to give them a voice when they may have lost their own. The simple act of singing can transform lives. It’s my life’s work to champion it.”
stars: With Russell Aled
Caroline has documented her journey in a heartfelt memoir Sing: The story of Rock Choir, featuring a foreword from Michael Ball, which is out on Tuesday.
Yet, despite the success, she refuses to rest on her laurels.
Eighty members led by Caroline sang at the BBC’s Proms in the Park, accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra, with a further 10,000 Rockies, as they are affectionately known, in the audience. Meanwhile 20,000 members sang at London’s O2 stadium and last month 350 Rockies performed at Althorp House in front of the Diana memorial, to mark the 25th anniversary of the charity set up in the name of the late Princess ofWales.
Caroline, who lives with her pilot husband Stuart and son Hamilton, four, smiles: “The moment I knew we’d become a household name was during an episode of Coronation Street, when Gail Platt was talking to Sally Webster about taking up a new hobby and she said, ‘You should join Rock Choir’.”
The choir released their first album in 201singers Watson and Jones and have two Guinness World Records – for the Largest Musical Act to Release an Album (signed) and for the Biggest Hit Act in the UK. Meanwhile, Caroline has gained four gold and platinum-certified sales awards from the British Phonographic Industry.
Sing: The Story of Rock Choir, Caroline Redman Lusher (Splendid, £12.99) is out on Tuesday. To order a copy: www.expressbookshop.com or call 020 3176 3832. Free UK P&P on online orders over £25.
